Satellite Magnate Argues Post-Brexit Britain Will Be 'Lost In Space' (bbc.com)

PolygamousRanchKid quotes the BBC: Will Marshall's "Planet" company operates the world's largest satellite imaging network, with 150 spacecraft able to fully picture Earth on a daily basis. He warns EU withdrawal will do immense harm to Britain's space industry. The UK will be "lost in space", he says.

The UK Space Agency responded by saying home businesses had a positive outlook. The most recent survey of confidence across the sector found that three-quarters of organisations expected growth over the next three years, it added.

Dr Marshall holds particular scorn for the UK government's actions on Galileo, the EU version of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Ministers have decided to walk away from the project because Brussels says a future Britain, as a "third country" outside the EU, cannot be involved in the system's most secure elements — this despite the UK having already invested £1.5bn in Galileo. London says it will build its own sat-nav system instead, but Dr Marshall calls this a "pie in the sky" plan that has significant economic and security implications.

Comments

Yeah - they'll be asleep.

[RyanFenton]

That's kind of what conservative movements are.

If the nation is a body, conservative movements like this are like sleep - closing off from the outside world, consuming internal resources, remembering the past, and quite often living virtual nightmares.

Only in this case, every time the nation as went to sleep for extended periods like this, it lost enormous portions of its body against its will.

That makes nations like this closer to bacteria in dynamic intelligence than people.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Yeah - they'll be asleep.

[timeOday]

Just imagine a corporation from 1973 being transplanted straight into the present though. It wouldn't last a year.

Britain on its own doesn't have the size to compete as a first-rate player in space, and space is tied closely to national security so the commercial sector will always be somewhat constrained in crossing borders, varying with how open/friendly ties currently are.

Re:Yeah - they'll be asleep.

[drinkypoo]

Amazing how Britain did just fine on its own before 1973, huh?

They weren't on their own, they were stealing resources from other nations.

I guess they must have been "asleep" for those hundreds of years prior, when they were helping to develop modern civilization,

...in their image, at gunpoint.

Brexit is Ancient Sumerian for Apocalypse!

[Chas]

FUD FUD and more FUD.

If we leave the EU! Everyone is gonna die!

If we leave the EU! It'll be like Venezuela! Overnight! Plus cannibals! Do you want cannibals?

If we leave the EU! The terrorists win!

If we leave the EU! It'll be like the rape scene from Pulp Fiction! FOR EVERYONE!

If we leave the EU! Your momma won't love you no more!

Ain't NOBODY ever got fired for staying in the EU!

And on, and on, and on...

It's a bunch of stupid, petty excuses from people who just want their way.